Winter is here

In my last post i mentioned that it looked like winter was here. Well it is official. We have had 2 nights of frost and I have looked out the thermals for work. I don't do bad weather - there is no such thing, just the wrong clothing. While we have had frost at night the days the been bright and sunny which has been great. The birds are taking the change in the weather in there stride and even though it has been frosty it is not cold enough to cause any serious problems.

There hasn't been a lot happening in the centre over the last week. There have been bookings most days but it has not been that busy. No big bookings and we haven't really been travelling about to do any events at different locations. The last week has been between the Scottish half term holiday week and the English half term holiday week. It has almost been a lull in bookings.

The coming week on the other hand looked reasonably quiet at 9am this morning with nothing booked for today tomorrow or Wednesday morning. That changed by 11am this morning. We picked up a hawk walk, 2 more bookings tomorrow and 1 on Wednesday morning. It is safe to say I am nearly fully booked this week but I was kind of half expecting it to do this. I also have my first school visit of the new school year on Thursday. The school visits are always good fun and a real change to the routine

The birds are all flying well so while the coming week is busy there shouldn't be any real challenges. 1 more busy week and then things will quieten down a bit. November tends to quieten down for the birds so I will reduce the number of birds flying a bit more but it can be very busy for me with the run in for Christmas.

Even though things are busy in the centre I try not to let this stop me working with the birds and improving the team. I have been bringing Artemis the Steppe Eagle's weight down. Now I would like to point out that
I am not a big fan of eagles. Don't get me wrong they are stunning but they are hard work. Every thing about them is hard work. They are big heavy strong and that can be just the eagles personality. You are also have to be really careful where you fly them. They will not think twice about taking cats and dogs so there is a real responsibility in flying an eagle. In the past I have always flown Artemis to the lure dropped on the ground but this year I am trying to get her to fly to the glove which is hard work as I have never asked her to do this before and she sometimes struggles to land on the glove and doesn't seem that sure what she is meant to do. Once I have her flying a bit more confidently I will introduce the dummy bunny and get her chasing this to build up her fitness a bit

Getting weighed

Going back to T perch

Coming to glove

Good news

The good news first. Pele has recovered from his broken talon. While it hasn't healed in the fact that the talon hasn't grown back he is using it. Even better he caught a rabbit today at Cameron House.

Things have been steady over the last week. Tuesday was busy with 3 hawk walks back to back at Cameron House. Mardy did 2 and he was great. Flew really well for 2 hours.

On Wednesday i was meant to take some people out hunting but they didn't show so went out myself with Amber to check on a bit a ground that i have permission to hunt on. It was not good. A few years ago it was over run with rabbits but over the last 5 years there has been a steady decline in the rabbit numbers to the point where i would say there is none. This is not unique in this area. I have permission to fly else where and i have noticed the same there as well. Other falconers in the area have said the same on ground that they have permission on. I need to find some new land that i am allowed to fly on. There were a few pheasants about and Amber was unlucky with them coming close to catching 2 of them.

On Thursday it was St Phillips Secure Unit. Like i said in my last entry, it is always an experience going there. I have no idea as to why these boys are there. I know some are there for 3 - 4 years so they have done something wrong. I am never that comfortable when i am there and it is not dealing with the boys who stay there. It's the fact that where ever i go the door is always locked behind me. First of all i drive my car into a loading bay and the gates are locked. The a door is opened into a games hall and once i am in the door is locked. I never feel that comfortable being locked in a room that i can't get out. I guess most people are like that.

The on going saga that is Bob has stopped for the time being. There was a few days last week where I knew I was going to be struggling to fly him so i gave him half a pigeon to eat. He was delighted. I didn't need to feed him for 3 days after he ate the half pigeon. He also dropped 3 feathers so I have decided to let him moult and tidy himself up.

The weekend bookings passed with out incident unlike today. As I said at the beginning of the post Pele caught a rabbit. I was at Cameron House and the person out was someone from the sales team. I said I would take them on a hawk walk so they knew what it was all about and could tell guests about it. We were walking through the grounds and Pele drops out of a tree and goes behind some bushes and has nailed a rabbit. The person from the sales team was ok about it. At the end of the day it was a good incident.

Winter is now starting to show that it is almost here even though it is only mid October. They were mentioning on the weather this evening that there could be frost tomorrow night. I will need to start restricting when the birds can have baths as the last thing you want is the bird to have a bath late afternoon or early evening and then for there to be a frost. Some of the birds are prone to getting a condition called wing tip edema which is frost bite like the Harris hawks, the Lanner and the Lugger. As the seasons change the routine in the centre changes. The two go hand in hand.

The coming week is fairly quiet so a chance to relax a bit myself. The last 6 months have been full on and next week may be busy due to the English schools being off on holiday and then I need to start preparing for the Christmas rush of gift vouchers as presents. This doesn't impact on the birds but it does mean i am on the phone and e mail answering enquiries. The days are short and the weather can be rubbish so i can be limited as to when i can fly the birds.  Over November and December the number of birds flown is reduced to it's lowest level in the year. I don't like birds sitting about at weight and not flying. I don't think this is healthy for them. So we only have about a third of the birds flying at this time of the year. The rest are given extra food and rested over the worst of the winter.

Everything i do i am always thinking about the birds welfare and health. This is why i won't do certain types of work with birds. Namely allowing people to come and hold a bird and charge for a photo at a gala day or car boot sale and the bird spends all day getting passed about and not allowed to settle. Out at the centre it is different. You are welcome to take as many photos as you want and you WON'T be charged. The handling only last for a few minutes or the birds are flying and choosing to come to the person. Rant over.

Mid October

A quiet week last week with 1 booking each day on Monday to Thursday. On Friday we had no bookings. I had to do business stuff and enter the real world on Friday - I had to see the accountant. At least the birds got a day off. Saturday and Sunday we had 3 bookings each day. 2 of the bookings were away at Cameron House on Sunday so that meant for a bit of a hectic day with loading the car and driving. Once again I can't thank Jo enough for dealing with the centre and generally being there dealing with all the little things while I am rushing about doing bookings. It was a busy week by the end even though it didn't look like that when I posted my last entry to the blog at the beginning of the week.

The only down side last week was Pele. He has been a star over the last few weeks but he had a bit of bad luck last week. I had him out hunting on Tuesday 5th October and we had only been out for about 30 mins. Things were looking ok when we flushed a rabbit and he went for it. he looked like he just missed it and he flew up in to a tree. He then was very slow to follow on which is not like him. I went to call him in and when he came in I noticed he had broke a talon. It wasn't bad but it had exposed some of the talon quick and was bleeding steadily. He wasn't happy. It would of been quite sore and tender. A bit like tearing a nail to far down. By the time I got him back to the centre it had stopped bleeding. Jo looked at it later in the day and thought it best that he got some anti-biotics to make sure there was no infection so it was off to the vet. There doesn't seem to be any sign of infection so it looks ok. The talon will grow back and he is still flying.

The strangest thing I saw  in the last week  was 3 House Martins on Saturday 10th October. I thought they had all flown south as I haven't seen any for 2 weeks but here were 3. Saying that I haven't seen them in the last 2 days so they have probably headed south by now. I hope so for their sake. 

I have started flying Bob the Gyr x Saker again. He does well some days and I think ok he is improving only for a day or 2 later he seems to take a step back. The end of this week is not as busy as it has been so I will try and fly him away from the centre and see how he goes. This is the problem of getting birds that are second hand. I always say "No body sells a good bird". If you have a good bird you want to keep it.

The birds don't have baths as they were only out for 45 mins before we started flying and they all had to be put back in their travel boxes for safety

Pele in action at Mar Hall

I didn't put any pictures of our visit to Mar Hall in the blog last week so I have put some in this week.

This week is not too busy. 3 bookings tomorrow - Tuesday 12th October . Wednesday is spent taking people out hunting all day and Thursday will be spent doing talks on falconry to some boys in a secure unit. A bit of a contradiction. Wednesday the great outdoors and freedom. Thursday locked up. An interesting week in someways.

I have done several talks at the secure unit over the years and I always come away realising how lucky I have been. It is always a bit of an experience. Then again that is what I love about doing this for a living.Each day can bring a new challenge or opportunity or experience.

What a week

Well in my last post I mentioned that I had a very busy week coming up and I would let the blog know how it went. Even though the weather was very wet at times we got everything done.

It went well.The birds all flew well apart from Lobey the Turkmanian eagle Owl at the 4 group rotational corporate event at Lennoxlove on Wednesday but it was raining very heavily when I asked him to fly and I don't think he was that impressed. Duffy the Bengal Eagle Owl stepped into the breach and was a star. Lobey is normally very good at these events but as I said it was raining heavily. The stand out bird of the week has to be Pele the Harris Hawk. There was 3 bookings where the rain was heavy when he was flying but we still got booking done and he was great in all of them. At Lennoxlove Castle he was great flying up on to the roof of the castle and then coming back to the glove at a steep angle. He looked fantastic.

Pele is the oldest Harris Hawk in the centre and 1 of the originals as I got him when I opened up the centre. While he is 8 years old he has only spent just over 3 years in the centre. He was very vocal so loaned him to Gail who used to help me in the centre.She flew him and hunted with him and caught all sorts. He is not related in any way to the other 4 Harris Hawks and this can be seen in his personality in that he is a bit more laid back than the others. He has got quieter over the years and doesn't shout anywhere near as much as he used to. Hopefully it will keep going that way.

While things were busy and the weather wasn't great I still found time to fly Gigha the Peregrine. He has stopped sitting and is now starting to fly with a bit of real speed. There is nothing like stooping (flying) a Peregrine to the lure when it has a decent level of fitness. The sitting is annoying but I know that he will pass through it and stop. It is just a matter of keep going with him.

As for Bob. I decided that I would give him a bit of time off. I have been working / flying him for a good few weeks now and I knew I was going to be struggling to find time to fly him last week so I have taken his weight up and I will start flying him again in the next day or 2 as long as the weather isn't to bad.

Today we had an event at Mar Hall Hotel near Erskine. I have never been there before so last Friday I went down to do a site inspection. I always like to go and look at a venue before I fly the birds there if I can. It is not always possible but it is always good to know what you are getting into and how you are going to do things on the day. It makes things look a lot more professional. I can't stand turning up and I am not organised and before you know it looks like amateur time. It just causes stress which is not good. One of things I learnt when I worked in hotels - first impressions count. It is not just all about the birds it is about me and the birds. We both have to be on top of our game.

Anyway back to Mar Hall. I went to look at it on Friday in the rain. Lovely setting over looking the Clyde. The first thing I noticed apart from the location was rabbits. This is not a problem but it can make the session a little bit more exciting and unpredictable with the birds going after the rabbits. I decided not to fly Lobey the Turkmanian Eagle Owl at it. He has caught 6 rabbits and a hedgehog over the years and has previous for chasing almost everything else that moves. The last thing I needed was on my first booking at Mar Hall was Lobey cruising about the grounds of Mar Hall on a mission to demonstrate falconry to the guests even though he is an owl and the hunting with owls is not falconry. I took Duffy the Bengal eagle Owl instead. I knew there was potential of the Harris Hawks going for and catching something but that's just the way it is with them. The session went well and when it came to flying the Harris Hawk - Pele - the grounds men had started to cut the grass sot he rabbits had gone to cover so it was all uneventful in the end. The guests said they had a brilliant time so I was happy.



This week things are not as busy but there is still things booked in on 6 days so lots to think about but it is all at the centre so an easier week.